More discouragement of cycling in Australia

[jefmcg]

Kind of mad in a country obsessed with sport and with plenty of road and track cycling success over the years.

Ironically (or something) when a group of champion riders were in a collision with a teenage driver (one dead, several seriously injured) it happened in Germany, not Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Gillett

 

[steveindenmark]

Jef,

I cannot see what an obesity table and an accident in Germany has to do with this post.

 

[jefmcg]

Jef,

I cannot see what an obesity table and an accident in Germany has to do with this post.

1. Obesity: do you have @Drago on your ignore list?
2. People keep saying how dangerous and anti cycling is, yet the accident that is driving a lot of safety lobbying in Australia happened in Germany. The Amy Gillett foundation does not have a problem with these laws, which makes me believe they firmly in the "cycling is dangerous" camp

 

[simonsch]

speaking of prejudice

(when I moved to the UK, I felt I'd gone back 15/20 years in terms of smoking and sexism. And I still can't believe how acceptable it is to hate gypsies/travellers here. And using terms like oriental. Edit: and anti-semitism. It took me a long time to notice that one)

I completely agree with this. And prejudice is just dripping from the comment above this one.

I frequently cycle in both the UK and Australia. They are pretty similar in my experience in overall level of antagonism to cyclists. At least according to my father (who cycles in Australia), the actual practice of the application of law to "car bike interactions" is slightly ahead in Australia of the UK, in that there is more of a presumption of guilt on the part of the driver. Clearly there is a bit of a backlash currently in NSW, but they have just introduced a 1m rule - what are the chances we could get that in the UK?

 

[Arrowfoot]

I found that Aussies are cycling more and more. I see them coming out from every nook and corner. There are also bikes stores popping up. Their last PM would ride his racer with his lycra buddies before heading to Office. I suspect that the increase has caught their motorists out unsuspectingly and thus the noise.

 

[Arrowfoot]

I am not really sure about the stats. When you land in Oz, the first thing you see is oversized males and their protruding tummies. You would be hard pressed to see a male who is over 40 and not overweight. This is in comparison to UK males. I suspect that it has to do with culture of mateship, heat encouraging quaffing of beer liberally and meat rich barbies. And I don't blame them when the weather get really hot - nothing like a cold beer.

Please stop posting this ignorant rubbish.

Please.

Australia is bad. UK is worse. Scotland is much worse. 3 cheers for Wales and NI!

https://www.noo.org.uk/NOO_about_obesity/adult_obesity/international

 

[Shut Up Legs]

There should definitely be more of this:
http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=87869&p=1319277&hilit=martin#p1319277

I just hope the addressees of this letter actually read it.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

[QUOTE 4180464, member: 259"]I will not go there on holiday because of the idiotic helmet law. My daughter will be there next year for six months, and if it was anywhere else we would have gone, but we'll meet up in Thailand or Malaysia instead.[/QUOTE]
Understandable.
You certainly wouldn't want to visit the state of NSW in Australia, where you will now get fined for the most ridiculously trivial and harmless "offences", while all around you, motorists are failing to indicate properly (or at all), failing to give way, overtaking too closely, running red lights, using mobile phones while driving, regularly exceeding the speed limit, and of course blaming all their problems on cyclists.

 

[steveindenmark]

[QUOTE 4180464, member: 259"]I will not go there on holiday because of the idiotic helmet law. My daughter will be there next year for six months, and if it was anywhere else we would have gone, but we'll meet up in Thailand or Malaysia instead.[/QUOTE]

Do you really find helmets that uncomfortable or are you going to miss sharing the experience of a lifetime with your daughter because of a principle?

Thailand and Malaysia are nice but they are not the same experience that Australia is.

Fortunately, I can take or leave helmets. But I wouldnt miss a riding experience just because I had to wear a helmet.

If they bought the helmet law to the UK, would you stop riding. Im not having a go, I am just curiosity as to how far people who love riding will go not to wear a helmet.

 

[jefmcg]

[QUOTE 4180464, member: 259"]I will not go there on holiday because of the idiotic helmet law. My daughter will be there next year for six months, and if it was anywhere else we would have gone, but we'll meet up in Thailand or Malaysia instead.[/QUOTE]
Everyone has to pick a line they won't cross, but is that really the one you want to pick? Do you really think Australian helmet laws are worse than Malaysian anti-sedition laws or the Thai lese majeste laws (a man is facing 37 years jail for being rude about the King's rescue dog)? Or sticking with Australia, do you really feel it's worse than the Government's policy on refugees?

(totally understanding you not wanting to live there, but that's a different thing)

 

[jefmcg]

I just hope the addressees of this letter actually read it.

They are not going to read it. They wouldn't accept a petition with 10,000 signatures from their electorate, why would they read a letter?

(Apparently if the petition was on paper, they would have been obliged to debate it, but as it's an online petition, they are legally if not morally free to ignore it. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...gainst-nsw-government-cyclist-laws-id/7172488 )

Obviously, driving in Sydney would actually be better if there were more cyclists on the road, and less drivers. But even if you quadrupled the numbers of riders, there would still be traffic jams, and drivers would still perceive cyclists as being part of the problem, not part of the solution. The Government has a choice: encourage cycling, and make commuting in Sydney a little bit better for everyone, or appeal to the base instincts of angry drivers, take a stick to cyclists, make everything a little worse - but no one will blame the Government, except the cyclists and who listens to them, they jump red lights blah blah blah. When the second affect comes, when all the people who decided cycling wasn't worth it under this draconian system hit the health system with obesity and inactivity disorders, no one will link it to this Government's rules. And even if they did, who cares, they'll all be retired on fat pensions and with well paid part time board position for companies their policies supported.

This has got me so mixed up that I misread Cash for cycling? Polluted Milan wants to pay commuters to bike to work as "Milan wants commuters to pay to bike to work"

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I'm so bloody ashamed to be Australian, right now. I really wish I could afford to leave.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...in-world-s-toughest-regime?platform=hootsuite

 

[jefmcg]

I'm so bloody ashamed to be Australian, right now. I really wish I could afford to leave.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...in-world-s-toughest-regime?platform=hootsuite

Wow

“If one cyclist chooses to now wear a helmet because of the new penalties, we consider that a win for cyclist safety,” Carlon said in an e-mail.

Even if you believed that every road fatality could be prevented by helmets, that's a nonsense statement. According to the Government, 1.09 million ride their bicycles at least once a week in NSW. Number of fatalities is 11. So one extra person wearing a helmet would reduce that to .... 11. And there are around 1,500 serious injuries. Assume that all serious injuries are head injuries, and that helmet wearing will prevent all of them. Then the single helmet wearer will reduce serious injuries by 0.0014 people or 0.0001%.

Yup, that's a win in anyone's language.

 

[glenn forger]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10206830922144910&id=1031985234

It's the Constable Savage sketch.

 

[YahudaMoon]

Over 1000 Australians a year are killed on the roads, so what does the government do? Crack